


Gallya Drabbles

by DunkinLove



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Drabbles, Ficlets, Multi, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-12 20:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11744826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkinLove/pseuds/DunkinLove
Summary: A collection of small drabbles I have written for prompts on my Tumblr. Some of you may have read all these already but for those not on Tumblr you may enjoy reading these as well!I will update as I write more. Follow me on Tumblr if you want to submit a prompt when I and other gallya writers post lists.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: devotion. 300 Words

Gaby gripped the steering wheel, inhaling deeply and willing herself not to get emotional, not to act like a fool even though there was no one to see her in the airport’s dark lot. She hadn’t even cried for her father, why should she tonight? She should be used to people leaving her behind by now.

She had been stupid to even hope that he might change his mind at the final hour, that he might tear up his ticket and turn away from the gate with her. But here she was, alone in her car, while he was out on the tarmac on a plane headed east. If he had expected her to beg for him to stay, then he was dead wrong.

Gaby angrily dashed a stray tear away before gripping the wheel tighter but she couldn’t bring herself to turn the key in the ignition. She couldn’t go back to the flat and see his empty mug in the sink or see the bed that he had made that morning. All she could do was grip the wheel. 

Gaby was off her guard and had no time to reach for her gun when the passenger side door flew open. Illya suddenly took up every square inch of space in the seat beside her. He breathed heavily and stared straight ahead. 

Gaby released the wheel and started at him in shock, hardly believing he was there with her and not hurtling down a runway, leaving forever.

He finally looked at her.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

“And after that?” she asked, voice shaking.

“Anywhere we need to go.”

“We?” she said, barely audible even in the confines of the car.

He nodded, eyes wide and afraid and devoted. 

Gaby swallowed, nodded back and finally turned the engine over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Beginning'. 200 Words

The sweat was cooling on Gaby’s skin. She felt a bit awkward now that it was all over and she was no longer mindless and impatient. She closed her mouth when she realised she was still panting lightly.

She heard the sheets shift beside her but she didn’t take her eyes off the revolving ceiling fan.

“Are you…was it okay?” his deep, tentative voice asked.

It was more than okay, Gaby thought, but she couldn’t tell him that. Not now. So she nodded briefly and toyed with the edge of the sheet. 

This was supposed to be a one-time thing, something to sate what she thought was just lust and curiosity, but now she felt warm and soft and she wanted to do it again. And possibly again after that…

Gathering her courage she turned on her side and faced Illya, looking deliciously well-used on the rumpled bed.

“It was good,” she said, almost smiling as the blush spread across his face.

“We have rest of the afternoon,” he said slowly, almost shyly and she couldn’t help but roll over and kiss him.

This was the beginning of something and there was nothing they could do to stop it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dawn, Glow, Ocean. 200 Words

Illya had never been so exhausted in his entire life. His training with the Special Forces in Siberia, round-the-clock surveillance missions, days of flight connections across every timezone; nothing before compared to this level of sleepless exhaustion. He walked to the window where the first glow of dawn threatened, glinting off the ocean that separated them from their past lives, a constant reminder of how far they had come.

Behind him Gaby slept like the dead. Her insomnia rarely reared its ugly head these days and she never turned down the opportunity to drift off when he offered to take over. The light slowly seeping into the room stood no chance of waking her.

Illya yawned and blinked with warm affection at the cause of his sleeplessness, wide-eyed and awake in his arms, as much undeterred by the dawn as she was from sunset. She smiled, Illya imagined, at his bloodshot and bagged eyes, the husk of a two metre tall man brought to his knees by a child the size of a bag of flour.

“You think this is funny?” he asked in a raspy voice.

She smiled again in the dawn’s glow and he couldn’t help but smile back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Photograph. 200 Words

Illya bolted the door to his Moscow apartment. The residence was small, sparse, anonymous and very different from the warm snug flat he called home in London. He made his tea, marked another day on the calendar and counted the weeks. It was still too long and he was exponentially more restless than the evening before.

He stared at his mug and gave in, went in search of his secret, the one slipped carefully into the crack in his bedroom’s door frame. He laid back on his bed to look at her, imagined the smirk he’d receive if she knew he had stolen this from her file. It was the same photograph he had received when he was handed the fateful mission to East Berlin. The grainy surveillance photo didn’t do her eyes justice. She was all coveralls and grease, a boyish thing he had underestimated. It would be an easy mission, he had thought at the time.

He slipped the photograph under the pillow beside his own. It might be unwise but even if the building were to burn down he wouldn’t leave without it. He always slept better with her beside him, in whatever form he could get.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Gaze. 200 Words

Gaby’s pink-tipped manicured fingers turned to the second page of the report. She tapped the pencil’s eraser against her bottom lip as her brown eyes scanned the page. Her eyes glanced up across the conference table as she nodded in agreement. 

The eraser tapped her lips again and Illya wondered what they would feel like, specifically against his own. He swallowed when her lips quirked at something that was said. Her lashes fanned across her cheek when she glanced back down at the paper on the table.

The eraser tapped away. He vividly remembered the exact shape her lips take when she speaks his name. _Illya_.

“Kuryakin…”

Illya snapped to attention at the annoyance in Waverley’s voice and realized that four pairs of eyes were focused on him expectedly. Solo smirked, having noticed Illya’s dreamy gaze. 

“Yes, of course, sir,” Illya agreed hastily.

“That’s all well and good Kuryakin,” Waverly said slowly, “but I wasn’t asking for your approval on anything.”

Napoleon covered his growing smile with the heel of his palm. Illya felt the blush rise in his cheeks when Gaby arched her brow in amusement.

“Perhaps a bit more focus for the remainder of the meeting?” Waverly suggested.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'There is enough room for both of us'. 200 words

“I’ll sleep on couch,” Illya hesitated, looking at the little rod iron bed doubtfully.

“Nonsense,” Gaby challenged. “It probably has bed bugs and it’s about two feet too short anyway.” She wiggled closer to the wall, patting the mattress behind her. “See, there is enough room for both of us.”

There was hardly enough room for a small dog or a cat but Illya relented with a tired sigh. The threadbare couch in the other room probably was vermin ridden and he didn’t want splinters in his side from the distressed floorboards.

He removed his shoes and lowered himself onto the bed, the springs groaning in protest. He awkwardly maneuvered his body so he wasn’t touching Gaby more than necessary.

Gaby shifted and grumbled in discomfort, elbowing him.

“Sorry,” he apologised, suddenly remembering the portable transceiver in his pocket. Gaby watched over her shoulder as he placed it on the nightstand.

They settled in eventually, leaning into each other as sleep finally took hold. At the brink of drifting off Illya felt Gaby shift again, rubbing against him.

“Illya?”

“Hm?” he responded, half-asleep, melting into her warmth, her scent in his nose.

“Do you have another transceiver in your pocket?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'I saved you a seat'. 200 Words

Illya paced outside the cinema’s entrance unsure of whether he should just head home or walk into the diner across the street to wait. He couldn’t change his mind, not now.

Mr. Connery, pistol aimed with an arrogant smirk, mocked him from the movie poster.

When he told Gaby that he would not spend his money to see something so ridiculously stupid as Goldfinger she had merely shrugged her shoulders, said ‘suit yourself’ and bought a ticket before disappearing behind the cinema’s door. Illya, who had fully expected to be subjected to a tirade about his stubbornness or his anti-capitalist sentiments before giving in and buying a ticket, stood dumbfounded at Gaby’s lack of fiery persuasion. 

The ticket seller looked at him dully from the glass booth. Illya cursed and fished seventy cents from his pocket before slapping it on the counter.

“Enjoy the show,” the pimpled teen mumbled.

Illya squinted through the smoky haze of the theatre until he spotted a brunette ponytail.

“I saved you a seat,” Gaby whispered when he arrived, removing the jacket beside her.

Illya sat down without a word, eyes front. Gaby’s lips stretched into a sly grin.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Go back to sleep'. 200 Words

The rain woke her, as it so often did. Drizzling or downpour, it didn’t matter, her insomnia was stirred by precipitation like a tulip in spring. She perched at the foot of the bed, leaning on the windowsill watching a fat raindrop travel down the glass pane, gathering mass and momentum as it fell. It's bad habit from childhood when she would stay up waiting for her mother, then her father. Lonely nights of watching dark, abandoned rain-slick streets for people who would never return. 

A few more hours and the sun would be up and she’d be exhausted from this nonsensical routine. She huffed and leaned her forehead against cool glass.

“Gaby?” a sleep thick voice asked.

Illya rose to his elbows, hair mussed, to look at her with drowsy eyes, immediately understanding.

“Come,” he urged gently and she did, because she was tired and his sleepy presence broke the wearying spell of the rain. Crawling across the duvet she was pulled into a tight embrace, his sigh against her crown and his arms across her back.

“Go back to sleep,” he muttered and with a yawn against his warm chest she did, the rain and the street forgotten.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Waiting impatiently for something'. 200 words

“I told you this was not good idea,” Illya hissed in the darkness.

Gaby shifted slightly, the mop’s handle digging into her back, carefully trying not to knock over the bucket beside her panty-draped foot.

The impromptu secretarial conference taking place just outside the utility closet’s door showed no signs of abating when squeals erupted at the announcement of an engagement.

Illya grumbled lowly, gripping her thigh tighter, not out of passion but necessity.

“Barbara,” Solo’s voice materialized from outside the door, “I’m heartbroken, but let’s celebrate with a drink across the street, shall we?”

His suggestion is met with a tittering of excitement and the clacking heels of retreat. A moment later and there was a knock at the closet’s door.

“You can come out now.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: one missed call. 100 words

Gaby’s concentration broke, turning her head, cheek to bedsheet as the phone rang incessantly from the nightstand.

“What if it’s important?” she breathed.

Illya went on, gripping tighter, ignoring both her words and the metallic chime.

“What if it’s- ah- what if it’s headquarters?” Gaby nettled in a shaking voice.

“It is not,” Illya said through gritted teeth beside her ear.

“…maybe the building is on fire.”

Illya slowed his rhythm turning Gaby’s face to kiss her lips as he reached over and tore the cord from the wall.

The ringing ceased, replaced by the sound of headboard against wall.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'I wish i could hate you'. 100 words

“Why do you have to be like this?” Gaby murmured, drunk and half-asleep, her arm swinging gently with his stride.

“Like what?” Illya asked, looking down at the limp form in his arms.

Invader, occupier, oppressor; that’s what he is, or at least, that’s how she should see him. Why then did she think of him as a friend and confidant…even a suitor? He made everything so damn confusing.

He placed her in the bed, just as he had done many times before, gentle to a fault.

“I wish I could hate you,” she yawned. “It would make everything easier.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'I think I'm in love with you and I'm terrified'. 100 words

Gaby jerked the steering wheel and ran off the road just as the car behind went careening down the hill before them. It came to a deadly stop at a stone wall with a plume of flames and heat that Illya could feel on his face.

Gaby hummed in satisfaction.

“How did that happen?” he asked, shocked.

“While you were entertaining them with your fists I packed their boot with the plastic explosives and cut the brake lines.”

Illya stared at her, wide-eyed and short of breath.

“What?”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he uttered. “And I’m terrified”.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'No one needs to know'. 100 Words

They stir in the morning light, in the rumpled bed in her little flat. He shouldn’t be here, but it’s the first place to feel like home in years.

“You don’t need to leave,” she says softly from beside him. “You can stay, for as long as you like.”

He wants that, more than anything, to stay in this bed forever.

“But if they know I stay here-“

“No one needs to know,” she whispers, cheek to chest.

It can be that simple, he realises, pulling up the duvet to envelope them both, hiding them away from the world outside.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Well this is awkward'

A night alone and they burst into the kitchen. Planted on the counter, legs about Illya’s waist, his lips on her neck, Gaby sees a pair of eyes watching her over Illya’s shoulder and she shrieks. 

Illya jerks backward and whips around as Napoleon finishes buttering his toast at the kitchen table.

“Well this is awkward…” he says, biting down with a crunch,

“What are you doing here?!” Illya barks, adjusting his trousers as Gaby pushes her skirt down with an irritated glare.

“Date cancelled,” Solo says methodically around a mouthful of marble rye. “Don’t stop on account of me”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August drabbles.
> 
> Instead of adding individual chapters, I'm just going to make one per drabble spree.

19: I've missed this

It was his first Sunday back after six long months. Gaby padded back into the room and placed two steaming mugs of tea on the night stand before hopping over him to her side of the bed. She shook out the newspaper across the duvet, her hair in a messy bun atop her head and his too-large jumper falling off her shoulder.

Illya propped himself on a pillow and blinked sleepily in the morning light. Bird song came through the open window. The paper crinkled when Gaby turned a page. He realized he had forgotten what peace sounded like.

“I’ve missed this,” he said after a moment.

Gaby leaned over him and picked up her mug, blowing on the tea before taking a hesitant sip.

“Sitting in bed?” she asked. “I’m fairly certain you could have done that in Russia had you wanted to.”

Illya shook his head.

“No. I’ve missed being home,” he corrected. “With you.”

Gaby leaned over again to place her tea back on the table but stayed hovering above him. For a moment he was worried he had said too much, crossed one of their unspoken lines, but then she kissed him.

“I’ve missed this too.”

___

45: How much of that did you hear?

Gaby stepped out onto the balcony in her robe to cool off. It had been an active evening and Illya was already fast asleep. She sighed, enjoying the soft evening breeze.

“Sounds like you’re having a good night,” a voice said. Gaby swung around to see Napoleon lighting a cigarette on the neighboring balcony.

“I thought you were out,” she said in alarm. She hesitated as the past hour flashed before her in her mind’s eye. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Well I came out here when I heard the vase shatter,” he exhaled, smoke drifting in the breeze. “And what I’m guessing was the couch turning over.”

Gaby felt a hot flush grow on her cheeks. “And?” she challenged.

“And I stayed once I heard what you were doing to Peril,” he paused, smiling. “Is he always that vocal? Most men just close their eyes and enjoy it-“

“Shut up Napoleon-“

“But you…all I can say is that I’m rather impressed by how well your Russian lessons are going. I didn’t learn some of those words until I was approaching fluency.”

“Why can’t you mind your own business?!”

He frowned in consideration.

“Well that just sounds boring.”

___

15: Was that supposed to hurt?

It was halfhearted, he knew it, but as much as he wanted to teach the infuriating little German a lesson he still held back.

She struggled against his forearm and spit over her shoulder, “Was that supposed to hurt?” with a cruel little laugh.

Illya frowned at her wry grin and daring eyes. She didn’t think he was capable of his threat. She thought he was soft-boned.

He doubled the pressure of his forearm and tugged her pajama bottoms down. She squirmed but still mocked.

“Enjoying the v-“

She yelped when his palm connected with her bare ass.

She huffed, impressed.

“Again.”

___

29: I’m not going anywhere 

Gaby left the office the moment the clock hit five o’clock without saying goodbye to anyone. She pushed through the crowds in the tube station a bit more aggressively than needed, wore her sunglasses underground so no one could see even the hint of tears in her eyes.

When she reached her flat she marched into her bedroom, took down a suitcase and began throwing his things into it. Clothes, shoes, stupid little gifts she had gotten him, it all when into the bag with a flourish. She didn’t want the slightest bit of evidence lying around to remind her of what was missing in her life.

Gaby placed the bag outside her front door just as Illya was coming up the building’s steps.

“Take it and leave,” she snapped before trying to shut the door in his face.

Illya caught it and pushed himself inside. “I told them ‘no’,” he said sternly as they struggled with the door.

Gaby stepped back in shock. “What?”

“I told Waverly to tell them I’m not going back,” Illya replied softly.

Gaby swallowed and felt tears brim in her eyes again as Illya cupped her face in his hands.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

___

44: I still remember the way you taste

She hasn’t seen him in nearly three years and Gaby is struck by the warm wash of affectionate familiarity she feels upon glimpsing him in the gala’s crowd. He was still tall, of course, his hair a touch longer, but he was the same Illya she once called colleague, partner and lover. 

Gaby knew he was there as her adversary, to recruit the same asset she was after, but none of that mattered for the moment. As though sensing her presence Illya looked over his shoulder to the upper terrace and saw her, his eyes going wide and soft in a way that made her heart ache. She turned, hand lingering on the railing before walking away to a quieter corner of the residence to compose herself. 

In a darkened alcove Gaby willed her hands to stop shaking when a deep voice said her name. She looked up to see Illya in the flesh, just as she remembered him. A moment later he was in her space, his thumb tracing her cheek.

“It is you,” he murmured in wonderment.

She nodded shakily, breathing in with trembling breathes. Her eyes closed when his lips brushed the skin where his thumb had been.

“I cannot forget you,” he confessed against her ear. “You told me to but I cannot. I remember everything. I even still remember the way you taste.”

“Illya don’t-” Gaby sighed against his own cheek. 

“I still-”

With a strength she didn’t know she had, Gaby put her hands on his suit lapels and pushed him gently away. She shook her head slowly and stepped back. Illya’s hand hovered in the space where her cheek had been, eyes still wide but now with anguish.

“We both have work to do Illya,” she said with a lingering look and left.

___

13: I thought you were dead

She had never seen him like this before. He was so still, she could barely see him breathing. Was he breathing? Gaby wasn’t sure.

She tip-toed over to her bed, set the coffee down on the nightstand. Illya’s arm hung limp and lifeless off the side of the mattress, his foot dangled from the end. Had she killed him? Three times was a bit much for one night but surely if anyone had enough stamina…

“Illya,” she whispered.

Nothing. His eyes didn’t even move beneath his lids.

“Illya,” she said in a normal speaking voice.

When he failed to even twitch in unconscious acknowledgment, she stepped forward to give his shoulder a shake. Some blonde hair fell over his brow but nothing else moved.

“Shit…” Gaby cursed, “Illya!”

Illya’s blue eyes shot open and he sprung back on the mattress, the springs squeaking in protest, and nearly put a hole in her bedroom wall with his elbow. He scrambled to a defensive position, feet tangled in the sheets, stark naked and ready for a fight.

His breathing eased when he saw Gaby, brows furrowing in annoyance.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Well, I am not,” he growled.

“Good,” Gaby said nonchalantly, picking up the mug. “Coffee?”

___

14: You’re never going to let that go, are you?

“Did you ever expect to own your own house?” Gaby asked, looking around their cozy, albeit small new home. She pushed boxes into the corner and tried to imagine where the furniture would be placed. 

“No, but I did not expect many things,” Illya said, helping her. “I did not expect to live past 30. I did not expect to move to London. I did not expect to have beautiful woman propose to me.”

Gaby looked up and shook her head in exasperation as Illya broached a long worn subject of debate. “I didn’t propose to you,” she claimed. 

“Yes, you did,” Illya smiled, taking a box out of her arms. 

“I didn’t propose! It was a…suggestion. For legal purposes…” she trailed off lamely. 

“You said ‘it would be better if we were married’,” Illya said smugly. “This is proposal.”

“No it wasn’t,” Gaby huffed. “I said it would be easier for you to get permanent residency if we were married. You then took it upon yourself to decide to marry me.”

“Which is accepting a proposal, no?”

Gaby fixed her hands on her hips and gave him an irritated glare. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Gaby sighed.

“No, never,” Illya smiled again, kissing her forehead.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know which one you liked the most.


End file.
